Artel LLC

Artel LLC, a Herndon, Virginia-based veteran-owned large business and limited liability company, supplies commercial satellite bandwidth, proliferated low-earth orbit (PLEO) packaged data transport, and dedicated telecommunications circuits to the Department of Defense and civilian federal agencies as a prime contractor operating without subcontractor support. The company competes exclusively in full-and-open procurements with no set-asides; it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cydecor Holding Company, Inc., itself a veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned business.

Artel's portfolio centers on capacity brokerage and telecommunications infrastructure provisioning rather than labor-intensive service delivery. Representative prime awards include a $45.4 million definitive contract from the Air Force (May 2026) for 288 megahertz of non-preemptible commercial Ku-band space segment over USAF Central Command's area of operations, running through April 2031; a $75.5 million Space and Missile Systems Center delivery order (February 2023) for 216 MHz Ku-band space segment supporting Southwest Asia operations through February 2028; a $26.4 million Army Central Command delivery order for 144 MHz Ku-band bandwidth support under GSA MAS through January 2028; and a $1.08 million Air Force delivery order (January 2026) for operational PLEO data transport services with global coverage under the DISA $13 billion PLEO IDIQ, running through January 2027. Artel also holds a December 2025 award into the Missile Defense Agency's $151 billion Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) IDIQ (ten-year performance window through December 2035) and a $1.2 million single-award Department of State indefinite delivery contract (May 2023) for VSAT internet connectivity to the U.S. Embassy in Juba, South Sudan through November 2028.

Customer concentration is extreme and defense-centric. The Defense Information Systems Agency dominates both award count and dollars—492 awards (73% of the source-captured portfolio, by coverage) totaling $15.32 billion in combined potential value. The next-largest customer by potential value is the Department of Navy Naval Sea Systems Command (4 awards, $5.28 billion), followed by GSA Federal Acquisition Service (44 awards, $4.82 billion) and Army Central Command (12 awards, $615.1 million). Across the top five customer agencies by potential value, Artel captures 34% of its portfolio dollars. DISA's dominance reflects Artel's established position as a recurring task-order supplier on the agency's core satellite communications and network infrastructure vehicles.

Artel holds four named parent indefinite-delivery vehicles anchoring its prime footprint. The largest is DISA's Proliferated Low Earth Orbit Satellite-Based Services IDIQ—a $13 billion multiple-award vehicle (July 2023 award, extended options through July 2033) under which Artel has issued numerous delivery orders for PLEO packaged services, CERTUS LAND and CERTUS AVIATION configurations, and minimum-guarantee funding across Air Force, Army, and DISA customers. A second $13 billion DISA PLEO IDIQ was re-awarded to Artel (July 2025, period through July 2028 with options to 2033) as a replacement vehicle for new orders, with the earlier IDIQ remaining active only for previously awarded task orders. Artel also holds the recently awarded SHIELD IDIQ with MDA (December 2025, $151 billion ceiling, performance through December 2035) spanning classified and unclassified national defense initiatives including research and development, prototyping, systems engineering, weapon design, and test and evaluation. A fourth vehicle is Artel's $1.2 million single-award Department of State indefinite delivery contract for VSAT connectivity. GSA Schedule position (Federal Supply Schedule GS35F5151H) supports additional delivery orders at lower per-order values, with 133 task orders and $1.71 billion combined potential value. DISA Global Network Services IDIQ historically generated delivery orders for commercial telecommunications circuits and intra-regional leases; several completions in that vehicle approach or exceed their ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months.

Activity has moderated after a peak in 2023. Awards per year declined from 12 in 2023 to 9 in 2024, then 8 in 2025, with only 3 awards recorded through July 2026 (the recency cutoff). However, the portfolio's combined potential value ($77.94 billion) vastly exceeds obligated dollars ($3.55 billion, or 5% of potential), reflecting the front-loaded dollar concentration in the two $13 billion PLEO IDIQs and the $151 billion SHIELD vehicle. Nineteen awards face ultimate completion dates within the next twenty-four months, carrying combined potential value of $224.1 million—moderate recompete exposure relative to the portfolio size. Artel operates across 65 distinct customer agencies, but concentration among the top five is severe.

Service Contract Inventory reporting shows SCI-captured invoiced revenue of $148.6 million (FY2022–FY2025, prime records), with $42.2 million in FY2022, $45 million in FY2023, and $61.4 million in FY2024; no FY2025 SCI invoicing is recorded in the source, likely reflecting classification or deferred invoicing on satellite capacity contracts. The SCI dataset reflects only labor-intensive service components of Artel's broader telecommunications infrastructure work and excludes goods, products, and classified contracts—the majority of Artel's satellite bandwidth provisioning revenue. The company reported 8.3 FTEs in FY2022 (5 prime records), zero FTEs in FY2023 (4 prime records with no labor reported), 8.7 FTEs in FY2024 (6 prime, 2 sub records), and 8.1 FTEs in FY2025 (2 prime, 1 sub). Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, Artel delivered zero subcontractor hours—the company builds its own delivery teams and operates with minimal labor content relative to its capacity-brokerage model. Eleven named subcontractors appear in SCI sub records, but these are isolated instances on SCI-reportable labor work, not characteristic of Artel's prime contract approach. GSA Schedule labor rates span $44.07 to $324.59 per hour across 82 unique categories, ranging from junior telecom engineers (bachelor's degree, two years' experience) through principal analysts and senior subject-matter experts (master's degrees, eleven years' experience); no cleared labor is offered.

In its subcontractor footprint, Artel delivers non-personal IT services and cyber security support under Peraton Inc. (April 2025) for Regional Cyber Center-Europe operations, and engineering services and materials under L3Harris Technologies (May 2024) for a WSOTS II program—two limited sub engagements that do not characterize the vendor's operational model. Artel's core identity is as a direct-to-government capacity broker and infrastructure provider, not a labor-supply intermediary or integration subcontractor.

Professional information technology and telecommunications technical services.